Factors in converting from on-ground to online taskaccomplishment

26 Oct 2007 - 10:51am

Last reply:
7 years ago

1 reply

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Caroline Jarrett

2007

Hi Ariel

This may be off-topic for you, but I did some research on why people
don't go from paper forms to online forms for dealing with their
taxes.
I know removing barriers isn't the same as positive encouragement, but
you may find there's food for thought here:http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3385.asp

Comments

31 Oct 2007 - 7:26pm

dszuc

2005

Hi Ariel:

We just completed a user research study for a bank where people were more
likely to use online simply because the phone banking service was hard to
use, options that did not make sense, took to long to complete a goal and
was not convenient.

So the takeaway -- when one service starts to lag behind in terms of service
design, another channel takes over. It may not be that the alternative
channel is overwhelmingly better, but if its offers a few additional ways
for the customer to control their interaction and relationship with a
company -- people will lean towards it.

I'm looking for your thoughts and/or references to research or other
well-founded work regarding the factors that eventually convert people from
taking care of tasks on-ground to taking care of them online. I expect that
some of the biggest areas in which this is relevant are shopping and
banking.

I realize this is a big question and there are many "it depends" answers,
but but in general, for a computer-savvy audience of middle-of-life folks,
my sense is that this move happens when some combination of factors is
evident:

I am even more interested in this type of conversion when people are looking
for information. When do they convert from calling someone on the phone to
using an online resource (knowledge bank)?

- Anonymity/privacy - don't have to feel stupid by asking their
question
- Get a response/answer immediately (assuming they can find the
information they wanted)
- Discover additional information along the way?
- Anything else?

I know that two very strong factors at work underneath all of these other
ones are age, and comfort with computers in general. I'm not interested in
discussing those ones in this case since my audience is as described above,
but you guys want to talk about those factors (they certainly merit
discussion) please feel free to start an offshoot thread!